Are you like me, once you have finished a quilt top you are faced with the decision of “how am I going to quilt it”? While looking for ideas you discover a sea of choices? Itching to start but not certain where to start? Which quilting design, motif, style or pattern will look good where?
It doesn’t matter what type of quilter you are, a domestic machine quilter or a longarmer (standing or sit down). Getting started creating a quilting design map is probably the most difficult part of the process for many of us.
Avoiding the Rabbit Hole
When I need quilting inspiration or direction my ‘go to’ is my personal library of BOOKS.
I have these at my finger tips. Having a personal library keeps me on the path of quilting and not making a trip to the local library or waiting for a guild meeting or bother a friend to borrow a book from.
The ability to bookmark the pages of designs I like, those for future projects, highlight patterns that work really well and reference the pages again when I need a refresher.
The opportunity to take two of the designs, (or more), and combine into one design or pull out just a part of a design for my project….
Best of all I don’t find myself down the rabbit hole of Pinterest looking for ideas or inspiration.
Solution
The solution I recently found is a trio of books that fit all of the above and are inexpensive enough to have the whole series. These books are filled with designs from many designers, some of the designs we’ve seen and others are fresh and new. Lets start with what I would consider the first book of the series, although you could start with any of the books, because they are a la cart books and don’t require a “start”.
Free-Motion Quilting Inspiration
The books are published by C&T Publishing. “Free-Motion designs for Allover Patterns” is where we are starting, but there are two more titles just as promising “Free-Motion Block Designs” and “Free-Motion Designs for Borders, Triangles and Cornerstones“. All the books are all 158 pages, but have a varying number of designs. The Allover Patterns has more than 75 designs by 8 well known quilters! They are all bound with a spiral for flat easy reference with full page spreads of each design. The best thing about the books is you get a great sampling of several Free-Motion Quilters.
Have I intrigued you? Of course you will find them right here at I Have A Notion!
More Later- Beth